Eternal and Temporary in Architecture and Urban Planning

Abstract

The article focuses on the archaic model of the geocentric universe, which was captured in the general structure of buildings and cities. In this model, there is a stationary beginning in the center and a dynamic, changeable shell around. This envelope was associated with the firmament, over which stars and wanderingluminaries float, measuring time cycles. In Modern and Contemporary Periods, other ideas prevailed, aimed at achieving absolute harmony in mortal life, as if the course of history had ended and time stood still. This led to the flourishing of the art of regular planning and such architectural ensembles, where nothing can be "neither added nor reduced in order not to make it worse". Having passed through certain waves of "dynamic chaos" of eclecticism, modernity, and avant-garde, this art, only in a different guise, was once again established in modernism, which conquered the whole world but caused disappointment with its technocracy. Now we poorly understand the causes and consequences of what is happening. The article concludes with a call to return to the "long-forgotten old" and begin again to divide the "inner" - fundamental, unshakable, intimate - and "outer" - subject to fashion and conjuncture, frail and transitory. Intermediate states are also needed, gradual transitions from chaotic to moderate and highly organized. It means the rejection of the maximalist claims to achieve absolute harmony in the maelstrom of deliberately imperfect earthly life. Instead, the proposed implementation of the principles of relative harmony, allowing to conform to the context, aiming at a gradual and feasible ascent to an unattainable ideal.